World Creation 101
by StarShattered
Summary: It's just another normal day in Master Hand's residence. Too normal for Crazy Hand; he's bored out of his mind, and loud about it. Luckily, he has the perfect idea to stifle his boredom; why not create a new world? It shouldn't be that hard at all.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

"Brother, I'm bored."

Master Hand sighed as he lowered his book. "Well then why don't you go find something to do instead of just floating around?" Crazy Hand looked at him blankly for a moment before he started floating around randomly again. Master Hand watched him drily before resuming his read. A few seconds of silence passed in the strange purple dimension before Crazy Hand spoke up again.

"Brother, I'm hungry."

"We just had breakfast," Master Hand stated.

"…What's that got to do with anything?" Master Hand sarcastically scolded himself in his mind; he shouldn't have bothered mentioning such an irrelevant fact.

"Go get something to eat then," he said.

"But I don't know how to eat!" Crazy Hand yelled back. "I'm JUST A HAND!" His voice echoed far into the distance and Master Hand did a facepalm of sorts, hitting himself with the book.

"How do you think you've been eating for the last hundreds of years of your life?" he questioned the other hand in irritation.

"Never really thought of it."

"Oi."

Crazy Hand had been bored for days, and made sure his brother knew it. Everything was getting way too familiar for him. It was always the same deep space floating all around him, the same rugs underneath him, the same lampshades on the same lamps on the same tables–

"We can order new lampshades from the catalogue you know." Master Hand motioned towards a large magazine on the coffee table in front of him. The same coffee table next to the same couch– "How about we just do a whole home renovation then? I mean really. It's not that hard to do."

"Yeah but that's too _boring_," Crazy Hand frowned. "Oh! Oh oh oh oh oh oh! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" He flopped up and down in excitement, constantly hitting the light bulb that had appeared over him. He grabbed it tightly. "Look I have an idea!" he shouted, shoving the light bulb in Master Hand's "face". "Let's make a world!" The right hand looked at him like he was crazy. Which for Crazy Hand only meant crazier than usual.

"A world?" he asked in disbelief.

"A whole new world!" Crazy Hand nodded fervently.

"A world?" Master Hand repeated.

"A new fantastic point of view!"

"Can we even do that?" he wondered.

"No one can tell us no or where to–"

"Crazy will you stop singing for a bit?" he frowned.

"Noooope!"

"But Crazy we can't make a world!" Master Hand growled at him. Crazy Hand stopped dancing around to stare at him.

"Uh? Hellooo? You're the Hand of Creation! Make with it!"

"…By golly you're right." He had thought it was just a fancy name his mom gave him so he'd seem more important. He simply had to test this out, but how? He remembered briefly how Crazy Hand had broken his favorite mug a couple of years ago. He cracked his knuckles expertly before pointing sharply at the coffee table. "LET THERE BE MUG!"

"Hey look brother I got mugged! Crazy huh?"

"LET THERE BE COFFEE MUG!" he tried again. With a small ping his favorite mug appeared on the table. He stared at it in awe, flexing his fingers with the strange power. "So how are we gonna make this world anyways?"


	2. Making an Effort – Day 1: Steps 1–3

**Chapter 1: Making an Effort – Day 1: Steps 1-3  
><strong>

"Let's make an arcade first!" Crazy Hand burst out. Master Hand shook no.

"World creation is serious business, Crazy," he lectured. "It's a step by step process and if we mess it up our world could end up being terribly _boring_." Crazy Hand let out a gasp.

"Boring!"

"Yes," Master Hand nodded, glad to have caught his interest. "Boring." _Or messed up otherwise…_ He conjured up another book and showed it to the other hand.

"'World Creation 101'," Crazy Hand read. "That's the one with all the puppies, right? I love puppies!"

"No. It's about world creation."

"Oh."

"Step 1," the right hand recited off the first page. "Choose the locale. If you're just making a planet, anywhere will do. But for world creation, it is important that you make your world in an empty void." He looked at the dark space around them; the choice was obvious. "Yeah it's pretty empty here isn't it? Let's just move on. Step 2: Draw a diagram of your earth."

"Already on it!" Crazy Hand yelled. Master Hand floated over to the kitchen, where Crazy Hand was laser-inscribing a picture on the table. Suppressing his anger, he glanced at what his brother had made–and now appeared to be painting, no less. It was a purple cube-shaped object. The top face had a large black circle in the center. There were three smaller circles on the corners around it–one of them white–that looked to be buttons of some sort. A black line connected the smaller circles in a square shape. The rest of the faces were blank.

"Ok what is that?" Master Hand asked; he had no idea what to make of the odd picture.

"An object I saw once in a dream…" the left hand whispered distantly. The Hand of Creation stared at him for a moment, trying to come up with something suitable to say, before giving up and going off to draw a diagram of his own.

_Every planet I've ever seen is circular,_ he thought to himself. _Must be a requirement; the book doesn't say anything about it._ He drew a large circle on the page, and smaller circles within it; the book had reminded that planets needed layered interiors. The basic template used by most planets, it stated, was an inner and outer core, a mantle, and crust. _That was relatively easy,_ the hand mused. Next he had to think about size. "'Size matters.' …What's that supposed to mean?" He read on quizzically. "'Make it big.' Oh." Turning around, he called out, "Crazy, how big should we make this thing?"

"Ginormous x 8!"

"…Sounds about right." He wrote the "number" down next to his drawing. "Ok, Crazy. Step 3: Make the earth itself."

"Ok!" Crazy Hand shot a missile into the dark space, destroying a star in the process. Master Hand sweatdropped. _That's right; he's the Hand of Destruction…_

"How about I take this one?"

"But this is the least important step! Let me tryyyy!" the lefty pleaded.

"This is the first step! It's vital to the whole process!"

"There are only two of us in this world, MH. Two large floating hands. Do you really care what the earth we make looks like? I mean, you already drew the diagram so the rest will be easy," Crazy Hand stated. Master Hand gawked at him.

"That was strangely rational of yo–"

"Pancakes!" Crazy Hand yelled.

"Never mind… Here just follow the diagram…" The right hand handed the hand-drawn image to the left hand handily. "It's pretty easy to understand. Those are the inner layers of the earth, got it? And they're all made of different materials. There's a list of elements in the Appendix of the book so I think if we just choose the right combination we should be fine. Are you even listening to me, Crazy?"

"Yessum. I'll start rightttt nooowww!" He rocketed out into the space and began his job. Master Hand watched him flit about, growing more doubtful by the second.

_Should I really let him do this on his own? What if he messes up? What if he destroys the whole dimension by accident? Worse, what if he does it _on purpose_?_ He didn't want to think about it. _But what if he gets hurt in the process?_ _Mom would _kill_ me if I let him get hurt._ He shuddered. With that in mind he hovered slowly over to his brother.

"What have you done so far?"

"I've been working on the railroad all the livelong day!" he responded cheerfully.

"It's been five minutes."

"Yup! And I know exactly what to make these layers out of!"

"Oh! That's great!" It seemed like Crazy Hand was making good progress after all.

"The innermost layer is gonna have strawberry filling, then a layer of chocolate cake and a layer peanut butter, and the top layer will be cheese and sprinkles!"

"Wha-" LAYERS. You're doing it wrong.

"SHUT UP STUPID NARRATOR! NOBODY WANTS YOU!" Crazy Hand yelled into the void. "So anyways brother, doesn't it just fill you with so much JOYNESS?" He danced around the other hand, tossing his sprinkles up in the air.

"That's not exactly the word I would choose for it," his brother responded_._ "Why don't I…give you a hand? It'll make things go more smoothly, to say the least."

"Joyness."

They labored for hours, arguing over specifications every now and then, at which point Crazy Hand would go on a tantrum and destroy some parts, which they would then have to rebuild. After they took occasional breaks to grab small snacks and refreshments, and once for lunch. Slowly, their earth was coming together. It wasn't until early evening that they finally finished. They stood back to admire their work; their gloves were soiled and tattered in places, but it wasn't that big a concern for them at the moment.

"FIST POUND!" Crazy Hand shouted. The two hands punched together.

"It looks great, doesn't it?" Master Hand nodded as his brother zoomed towards it. He lost sight of the psychotic hand as he circled the globe, but he came back into view several minutes later. As he drew nearer, his exhilarated singing grew louder and louder.

"I can fly really fast!" the Hand of Destruction exclaimed as he finally returned. "Did you see me? Huh? Huh?" His fingers twitched frenziedly. "Around the world in eighty seconds at the speed of light!"

"Actually you took about ten minutes," Master Hand told him realistically. "And you were probably going about 90 mph average. And it's not even that big at all."

"…Party pooper," Crazy Hand mumbled. But it was true; the earth was only about the size of a medium-sized comet. "Why the heck is it so small?" Master Hand retrieved the book and flipped to the page he'd bookmarked.

"Step 3: Make the earth itself _in a scale model_," he read. "'You should be able to travel the circumference of your model in no more than thirty minutes at your average speed.' You were going way faster than your average speed, so you obviously took less time."

"It mocks me with its tininess," Crazy Hand stated in a maniacal voice. He readied his bombs. "I shall destroy it now."

"No, no, nonono!" Master Hand rushed in front of him. He grabbed the bombs and threw them as far away from the miniature earth as he could. Letting out a sigh of relief, he turned to his brother exasperatedly. "Are you crazy or something?" he fumed, a large blast exploding in the far background. Crazy Hand nodded jubilantly, and Master Hand had to hit himself with the book again. Without another word he floated back to his residence for a well-deserved rest.

"Wait for me, MH!" Crazy Hand called out as he began to follow him. The right hand took a quick glance back. "We were gonna have spaghetti tonight! Remember? REMEMBER?" A demonic look crept up on the crazy hand's hypothetical face, and his brother hurried to reach the door, not daring to look back again. "SPAGHETTI FLAMBÉ!" Crazy Hand yelled, doubling his speed; he hated being ignored. "AND MEATBALLS!" He hurtled towards the other hand at breakneck speed, which was actually just fine for him.

_I just wanna go to bed,_ the Hand of Creation thought miserably as he tore towards his home. Except that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. _I hate you._ In fact, he wasn't going to get any sleep for _hours_. _I really, really hate you right now._ Not only that, but he'd be forced to listen to his brother's obnoxious singing _all__** night LONG**_. _Crazy Hand was right; nobody wants you._ And speaking of Crazy Hand, he was quickly catching up, ready to pounce the Hand of Creation, probably to force him to eat pasta. _…I did this to myself, didn't I?_ It was going to be a very long night for Master Hand indeed.


	3. Being Solar – Day 2: Steps 5–6

**Chapter 2: Being Solar – Day 2: Steps 5-6**

Master Hand stood limply, looking out at his tiny earth, somehow guzzling down his morning coffee. It was his great misfortune to have barely slept the night before, partly due to Crazy Hand's "exclusive all-night concert", and partly due to the terrible feeling he'd gained in the pit of his "stomach" after eating spaghetti that was on fire.

"Guh…" he grumbled. He floated groggily over to the table where _World Creation 101_ lay open, its spine facing upward. Flipping it over, he glanced at the open page–Step 5: Make a sun. "Crazy," called the hand weakly. "Crazy, we have to make a sun today–" He was interrupted by a swift smack across his side that sent him sprawling back into the table. "WHAT THE HECK, CRAZY?" he yelled furiously at the left hand. "Oh hey, I'm actually awake," he noticed.

"YOU'RE A SICK, SICK HAND, MH!" Crazy Hand yelled back. "How could you even suggest something so vile? What kind of hand do you think I am, eh?"

"All I said was that we have to make a sun today!" He pointed at the page in the book. "See?"

"Oh."

"Whatever did you _think_ I meant?"

"…Nothing."

"Well anyways, we're skipping step 4 because that was to make stars, and we kind of already have stars," explained Master Hand. Crazy Hand raised himself. "…You have a question?"

"Can we make more stars?" Crazy Hand asked innocently.

"We have enough stars as it is..." the right hand said. "So we're just going to go ahead and make a sun. It seems like a pretty easy step. All the book tells you to do is take a burning star and…make it bigger." He reread the sentence hesitantly. "…Is it just me or is this book oversimplifying the process?"

"It's just you." Crazy Hand circled his brother impatiently. "Let's gooooo!"

"Why don't _you_ do it, Crazy Hand?" Master Hand suggested pleasantly. "I'm _sure_ you'd do a much better job that _I_ would." He wasn't exactly in the mood for getting close to any scorching-hot, flaming balls of fiery destruction at the moment. Besides, it sounded more like Crazy Hand's department anyway.

"You really mean it, brother?"

"I sure do." Master Hand patted him on the back and led him out the door. "Now go make me proud." He watched with great satisfaction as Crazy Hand zoomed away. "And while he works I can get more sleep…" He yawned, going back inside, and crawled into his bed. He placed a small nightcap on the knuckle of his index finger and fluffed the pillow. "Crazy will be fine…"

* * *

><p>Master Hand awoke to the smell of burned wood and hot gas. He got up with a jolt, cinders flying up about him, and looked around at what supposed to be his room. Instead, he was surrounded by piles and piles of ash. He stared at it, traumatized, as he wondered how he could have <em>ever<em> thought to leave Crazy Hand to handle any scorching-hot, flaming balls of fiery destruction on his own.

"_WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?_" he yelled in anguish.

"I finished the sun!" Crazy Hand said, zipping over to him proudly. The Hand of Destruction bounced around joyfully while his brother sobbed. "You must really be proud of me to cry like that!" he remarked, which only made the other hand feel even worse.

"What have you _DONE?_"

"I thought I told you! I finished the sun! You need to pay better attention or something," the left hand lectured, shaking a finger at him disapprovingly.

"And you _burned down our home_ in the process?" Master Hand cringed at the thought of it.

"We had some minor technical difficulties." Crazy Hand looked away shiftily. Master Hand sighed in defeat.

"So where is our sun now?" he asked as calmly as he could.

"We have a son?"

"You _just_ made it!" Master Hand pinched his fingers together and shook them slightly. He took a deep breath. "So where is it anyway?"

"Oh it's over there." Crazy Hand pointed his thumb to a large pile of soot at the far right. "It was getting too bright and I didn't have any sunglasses so I covered it up with a blanket instead! Good idea, huh? Except I'm not so sure where the blanket went. Spooky." With a sigh, Master Hand set out to fix his brother's mess for what felt like the millionth time that week. He looked behind the towering ash pillars and frowned when he saw their new sun. He'd expected it to be bigger than that, but, given the somewhat expected circumstances at its current size, was grateful that it wasn't. Now he just had to move it elsewhere.

"Uh…." He peered at it dubiously for a moment before curling up into a determined fist. He snapped his fingers. "Oh! No big deal. I'll just cover it in fireproof material." He made a box around the sun and hauled it off the platform, where it stayed aloft in the void of space. As with their earth, they'd be increasing their sun's size drastically later on.

"Ok, so the sooner we finish this, the better," Master Hand said as he went back to Crazy Hand.

"Aren't you gonna fix the house first?" Crazy Hand asked.

"We might as well wait until we finish the universe and make a new house on the earth." The Hand of Creation stretched his fingers. He retrieved the world creation book–which was, unremarkably to him, completely unscathed–to see what the next step was. "Step 6: Make a moon. Oh, and it's actually more difficult than making a sun, what a surprise," he said drily. As he read on, however, he grew even more skeptical of the book. "…'Make a bunch of random asteroids and mush them together into a spherical shape.'" _It can't be that simple,_ he thought. They _were_ making a universe, after all. _There has to be more to it._ He drummed his fingers against the floor in a baffled manner.

Crazy Hand sprang over excitedly. "What's the next step?" he asked. Master Hand showed him the step and he let out an exaggerated gasp. "You have, like, totally gotta be kidding me!" he exclaimed in disbelief. "What is _this_?"

"I know," Master Hand replied. "It's absolutely maddenin–"

"THIS IS SO EASYYYYYY! I CAN TOTALLY DO THIS! Right? Right?" The left hand poked the right hand zealously. A little too zealously.

"Ow! OW! O-"

"Wowzers! You're frozen!" Crazy Hand said, literally pointing out the obvious. The glacier that Master Hand was stuck in shook with his rage. A loud, muffled sound could be heard coming from him. "What's that? You want me to do this step, too? Oh you're so nice to me, brother! Even _if_ you're getting lazy! Of course I'll do it for you!" Master Hand twitched slightly, his stifled protests failing to reach the other hand, who had dashed out of his sight.

The glacier shattered a few moments later and the Hand of Creation stiffened as a wave of asteroids went zooming past him–he might've been better off frozen after all.

"Crazy–" He quickly bent backward as the asteroids passed him again. "What the hack?"

"WHEEEEEEEEE!" Crazy Hand yelled as he chased after the large rocks. "FASTER! ORBIT FASTER!" It was at this point that Master Hand noticed just what they were orbiting around; the fireproof box holding in the tiny sun. He moved away from the asteroids' flight path and watched curiously.

"What are you up to, Crazy Hand?" he asked the next time the hand flew by. Said crazy hand jumped out of the path of orbit and fiddled his fingers restlessly.

"Force field glove, stat!" He seemed to beam at Master Hand.

"So what's the plan?" Master Hand asked as he filled the order.

"I'm wearing two gloves!" Crazy Hand replied, much to the other hand's chagrin. "NOW BACK IT UP BROTHA!" he yelled. The left hand engulfed himself in a strange dark aura. Master Hand backed away startled–he'd never seen his brother so ominously determined before.

"Crazy?" asked Master Hand. His voice wavered at the sight of the oncoming asteroids. Crazy Hand clenched into a tight fist and hurled himself at the rocks.

"PAWNCH!"

A huge explosion lit up the void. Its blast was so loud that it could be heard worlds away…

* * *

><p>"HEY! LISTEN!"<p>

"Well what is it this time?"

"Did you hear that weird noise?"

"No, no I didn't. And you know, that's an even less helpful remark than usual. So _thanks_."

* * *

><p>"FOX! Do a barrel roll!"<p>

"Peppy, there's nothing on radar."

"But I heard an explosion! There's gotta be something!"

"…Maybe you should take a break. Old guy is going loony…"

"What was that?"

"Oh nothing."

* * *

><p>"Whoa. Hey, hey, dude! Did you hear that noise?"<p>

"Dude! Quit shoving me! You're gonna make me get Game Over!"

"But, man, it was all…explody-like!"

"Go play Pokémon or something. See look? I'm down to two hearts."

"Bowser's not that hard a boss…"

"Shut up."

* * *

><p>What was left was a round moon and two gloves the color of charcoal. There was a brief silence as they stared at their mini moon.<p>

"I don't think there's a man in there," Crazy Hand said after a moment. "If anything there's a pink bunny rabbit."

"I'm going to go clean off now…" Master Hand sighed. Looking around he added, "In fact I'll be cleaning _everything_ so–"

"I'll help!"

"No!" Master Hand shook fearfully. "I mean…" He shifted slightly. "If you stay you might see that rabbit." Crazy Hand gasped.

"That's a great idea!"

The Hand of Creation floated away and his left-handed counterpart giggled; he liked rabbits.


	4. Expanding Horizons – Day 3: Steps 7–8

**Chapter 3: Expanding Horizons – Day 3: Steps 7-8**

"Hey, MH? Do you ever feel like you were abandoned for a really, REALLY long time?" Crazy Hand asked his brother. Master Hand considered this for a moment.

"I…suppose so… Yes, I've been feeling that way lately…until right about now, actually."

"Hmm. Speaking of now, our universe is Fun Size," Crazy Hand stated. "Which means it's not very fun at all."

"Don't worry," Master Hand said as he referred to the world creation book. "'Step 8: Make everything larger. Basic dimensions provided in apparatus.'" He bobbed up and down slightly. "You see, I've begun to accept the unusual simplicity of this book," he told the other hand proudly, "simply because it actually works. I shouldn't be complaining about something that makes our job easier! Right?"

"Left," Crazy Hand said, giving him a weird look. "Left."

"…Okaay…" Master Hand flipped back through the book a couple of pages. "Before we make everything bigger we have to get them in the right position. Step 7: Set up orbits." He directed Crazy Hand to take the sun and move it as far away from their floating platform as possible; he didn't want their new temporary home—a large tent—to get burned down, too.

"A little to the left!" Master Hand called to his brother out in the distance.

"_What?_" Crazy Hand yelled at him.

"A little to the left!" Master Hand boomed.

"My left or your left?" Crazy Hand responded in an equally-loud voice.

"My left!"

"You don't HAVE a left!" Crazy Hand bellowed. Master Hand paused, irked, before shaking himself back and forth. He turned around so his back was to the left hand.

"A little to the right!" he yelled.

"My right or your right?"

"My right!" Master Hand told him. _Since he probably wouldn't have a right,_ thought the hand, amused.

"I do TOO have rights!"

Master Hand turned to look at him in surprise. "How did he even _hear_ that?" he wondered aloud as he watched Crazy Hand floating back towards him, the Sun now in place. Crazy Hand mumbled to himself bitterly, shooting his brother an indignant look.

"Says I don't have rights, he does," Crazy Hand muttered as he retrieved the scale-model earth they'd made just a few days before. "I have every right he does, except a right hand because that wouldn't make sense because I'm a left hand myself—and lefties are the besties—"

* * *

><p>Link nodded exuberantly in agreement for some reason.<p>

"Huh? Haw haw! So you _will_ marry Malon! Great!"

"UAH!" Link shook his head frantically, waving his hands in front of his face.

"You sure seem excited about it!" Talon laughed. "Let me go get Malon first!"

"EH?"

* * *

><p>"—and a left hand can't have a right hand because hands can't have hands I mean unless they have baby hands of course because only hands can have baby hands—well technically only babies have baby hands—unless someone cuts babies' hands off and takes them, but that's really downright wrong and anyways that's not even what I mean to say—" Crazy Hand's ludicrous chatter—which had grown in volume the farther off on a tangent he got—finally drew out of earshot of Master Hand, who sighed in relief. He watched as Crazy Hand set the earth down carefully, tilting it like the book had said, and attempted to spin the large sphere. "It worked!" Crazy Hand yelled back to him. "Though I thought it would spin faster than that…"<p>

"Yes…of course it worked…" Master Hand said. He picked up the small moon and brought it over to his brother. "So it says I'm supposed to set this over here…"

"Move it over two blocks," Crazy Hand said. _Blocks?_ Master Hand wondered. He moved the moon over a bit. "There! That wasn't so hard, was it?" Crazy Hand flicked the moon lightly and it began to spin slowly as well. "Mission complete!"

"Hold on, Crazy," Master Hand frowned as he read through the instructions. He nudged the tiny moon and it began on its orbit around the earth. "Ok, now we start the earth's orbit…" He moved over to the earth and immediately felt dwarfed by its mass; to think it was still considered small when it was more than fifty times his size! After a moment's consideration, he took a deep breath and balled up into a fist. He focused and charged up the shot before launching a powerful punch at the globe.

"WOOT! Master Hand used Focus Punch!" Crazy Hand cheered. "Oh hey…that's a really good name for a move…" He took out a notepad and scribbled it down happily; he planned to copyright it as his own, perhaps even patent it. Crazy Hand snickered. Maybe if somebody wanted to use it badly enough he could sell them the rights and make a lot of money.

"Did…Did it w-work?" Master Hand asked. He floated over to his brother shakily, struggling to keep his balance.

"Oh yeah. That thing's moving," Crazy Hand stated, his scheming thoughts interrupted for the moment.

"How can you tell?"

"I'm psychic!" The left hand flaunted himself pompously.

"…I'll leave it at that."

Now it was time for the step they'd been waiting for; making everything bigger. The brothers Hand situated themselves on a spot of their small earth where they could see the sun and the moon.

Master Hand read over the world creation book again. "Apparatus…? Crazy Hand did you see any equipment of sorts anywhere? I didn't see anything come with the book…"

"Pshhh. Lemme do this!" Crazy Hand said, taking the book from his brother. "Open says me!" he commanded it.

"Crazy, the book is already open," Master Hand pointed out.

"Whoops. Did it wrong," the left hand said. He made a throat-clearing sound and tried again. "Open says me!"

Master Hand frowned. "You just said th—" A strange whirring promptly sounded from the book, and Master Hand watched in disbelief as a large depression appeared on the blank page opposite of step 8, revealing a flashing scanner. "What in the world is _that?_"

"Don'tcha mean what is _that_ in the world creation book? Seems more fitting," Crazy Hand mused as he took out the device. Master Hand peered over at its flashing red screen, where two simple words were printed in a large font that took up the whole display: TOO SMALL.

"…"

"Told you it was too small," Crazy Hand said, passing his brother the scanner.

"This must be the apparatus the book was talking about," grumbled Master Hand. "But when it said 'basic dimensions provided'…I wasn't expecting this." Knowing better than to question it, he pointed the scanner at the distant sun.

"Calculating," a distinctly female mechanical voice spoke up.

"Whoa! It talks!" Crazy Hand yelled excitedly. "Say more things!"

"Calculating."

"Yay!" Crazy Hand beamed at the machine. On the other hand, his right counterpart watched the machine distastefully as the results showed up on the screen: "TOO SMALL".

"You would think it wouldn't take that long for it to calculate whether something is too small," he said, wholly unimpressed. He sighed. "That's it, then. We'll just enlarge everything until this little machine thinks it's the right size…I can only wonder how accurate it is…" Using telekinesis to keep the scanner pointed at the sun, he turned to his brother. "Well?"

"My body is ready," Crazy Hand said in a creepy voice, clenching into a fist and slamming himself on the ground. He flexed his fingers into a claw as an orb of energy began to form in the center of his palm, and Master Hand did the same. They moved closer together as the energies expanded, until they had merged into one large ball of energy. "Ha…DOUKEN!" Crazy yelled. The hands thrust their palms forward and sent a wave of energy rushing towards the sun. The gaseous mass began to swell to a tremendous size. Master Hand gazed up at it as it grew. He worried, for a brief moment, what would happen when it got large enough to reach them; obviously it would burn them to a crisp. Maybe they should stop.

"Oh don't _worry_," Crazy Hand said nonchalantly, still focusing the energy at the sun. "Everything's getting larger to scale… The earth—and the moon for that matter—is moving away from the enlarging sun! Come on, MH. This is _basic_. Don't be _such a kid_."

"Oh," Master Hand chuckled nervously. "Of course." He continued to watch the bulging sun unsurely before a beeping sound interrupted his thoughts.

"Just right!" rang the mechanical voice.

"Crazy Hand, stop!" Master Hand broke off the energy flow and Crazy Hand turned to look at the scanner.

"Just right? What about just left?" he pouted. Master Hand shook himself amusedly.

"Let's deal with mini moon now," he told his brother—he'd actually grown rather fond of the name. They pointed the scanner at the moon and gave it time to calculate how the moon was too small before reassuming the position. The balls of energy merged and surged between their palms.

Crazy Hand laughed. "I'MA FIRIN' MAH LAZER!"

"Wait wha-?" But before Master Hand could ask any more a large stream of energy blasted off and hit the moon. It didn't take as long as before for the scanner to beep and say "Just right!", and the brothers were able to stop the energy flow sooner. Crazy Hand shed a tear as he beamed at the sun and the moon.

"They grow up so fast!" he cried.

"Uhh…how about we do the earth now?" Master Hand suggested, attempting to get to the point. "We don't even have to send a beam out into space this time."

"But that was the fun part…" moped the crazy hand.

"I noticed…" Master Hand said. He set the scanner down on the ground and let it calculate the earth's "too small"-ness. "Pay attention, Crazy. All we have to do is prop our fingers on the ground like so…"

"Like pretending to be a spider, 'cept with only five legs instead of eight?" Crazy Hand copied his brother's stance.

"…Yes, like that. And then instead of creating a ball of energy, you can just direct it to the ground through your fingertips."

"Got it! All systems are go!" The Hand of Destruction glowed faintly as he conducted his energy into the earth, and Master Hand did the same. The right hand felt a sense of pride swell up inside him. They were almost done. It was almost over. They'd created _a whole world_. Never before had he felt so important, so powerful. He was ecstatic. _This is great!_ He was confident. _I've achieved so much! _He was getting cocky. _I'm practically a god—!_

"OOF!" Master Hand was jabbed squarely in the palm by a tree protruding up from the ground, and the shoot sent him shooting up into the sky.

"And it's _outta here!_" Crazy Hand called out as he watched his brother go flying through the air. "Guess I forgot to tell him after all."

Master Hand braced himself for impact as he crashed down through the trees. He landed on his back with a thud, and lay dazed amongst the leaves and broken branches. He groaned, wondering what else could possibly go wrong, when he heard the ominous sound of splitting wood coming from behind him. "Oh n-" _CRRRAASSH!_

_BEEP!_

"Just right!"


	5. Interrupting Forest – Day 3: Step 9

**A/N: Well hello! So I've picked this story up again recently, and after leaving it sitting around with nothing but two chapters and prologue for an excruciatingly long time I thought I ought to say I fully intend to see it out to the end. Thanks for your patience and thank you for reading!**

**Also, worry not those that will worry (because I know at least one of you will)! "Wherefore" is used incorrectly on purpose. Crazy Hand does what he wants.**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4: Interrupting Forest – Day 3: Step 9<strong>

"Wherefore art thou, brother!" Crazy Hand called out. He zipped about through the woods, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, before coming across a pile of fallen trees. "MH?" The pile of trees groaned. Crazy Hand frowned. He engulfed the trees in a purple glow, and lifted them high up into the air. Forming a finger gun, he took aim at the suspended bunch of trees and shot powerful lasers at them, causing them to explode in a burst of sparks. "Heh," the left hand chuckled darkly. "You've just been terminated."

"Crazy…" Crazy Hand turned to the right hand that lay on the ground.

"You're not as flat as I expected!" he said cheerily. "I was gonna send you to Flat Zone."

"To what? Just help me up…"

"Sure thing!" Crazy Hand grabbed Master Hand and helped him off his back. "Have a tomato!" he said, shoving it at his brother, who peered at it skeptically. "Go on!" the left hand prompted, giving him a poke. Master Hand relented, deciding it wouldn't hurt to try it, and ate the tomato as only a hand can, perking up instantly. "Now doesn't that feel better?"

"What kind of tomato was that?" Master Hand asked, in awe of his newfound strength.

"Some kind of maximum tomato."

"Where'd you get it?"

"The tomato box fairy."

"Oh that's great, quite interestin—WHAT HAVE YOU _DONE_?" Crazy Hand cowered at his brother's rage.

"Whaddya mean?"

"What are all these trees doing here?" Master Hand asked in fury.

"I was just doing the next step!" Crazy Hand whimpered.

"Oh. Really?" Master Hand calmed down a little. "The next step was to plant trees?" He consulted _World Creation 101_, pausing at step 9. "That's not the next step, Crazy," he said bitterly, flipping through the steps. "Trees aren't added until step 11."

"Whaa? Then what's step 9?"

"We're supposed to be making the atmosphere," Master Hand said drily. "Now your trees are going to shrivel up and die because there's not enough air."

"Oh no! Not my beautiful trees!" Crazy Hand cried, immediately going up to hug one as best he could—grabbing it, essentially. Master Hand sighed.

"I guess it's fine…" he mumbled. "We can just do the other steps with the trees around." He began to float upward over the treetops. "I mean it's not like these trees are covering every inch of the—" He stared at the horizon in shock. Trees. Trees everywhere. Everywhere he turned, as far as the eye could see, were trees. And they were all oak. "Crazy, come up here."

Crazy Hand made his way up to his brother and looked around. "Isn't it pretty?"

"It's pretty full of trees. Please tell me the entire planet isn't covered in trees." The right hand was surprised to see his brother whip out the scanner and point it at the horizon.

"Calculating," the mechanical female voice said. It made two small beeps before stating in a heavy voice, "Entire planet is tree-covered."

"Great," Master Hand groaned.

"Isn't it though?" Crazy Hand beamed, missing his brother's sarcasm entirely.

"How?"

"How is it great?"

"How did you plant all these trees?" Master Hand asked. _Although that question would work too…_

"I used the Tree-a pet from the back of the book!" Crazy Hand took out a small terracotta ball covered in seeds. "You see all you gotta do is plant this little ball in the ground and add water, and it diffuses to sprout a whole forest! Except we added all that energy instead sooo." Master Hand regarded the ball with curiosity, quickly flipping to the back of the book to see for himself where it had come from: unsurprisingly, another blank page.

"Open says me," he recited as his brother had done earlier.

"Hey watch out! It's actually a—" There was a bright flash of light and Master Hand let out a girly scream as he was sucked into… "—a portal," Crazy Hand finished quietly.

Master Hand landed with a thud on the cold concrete ground. He lay there crossly, aching from hitting his back yet again in such a short time span, and refused to get up, wary that something else would fall on him if he tried. He did not, however, consider that staying there would result in his brother crashing into him from the portal above.

"Blue skidoo! I can too!" Crazy Hand beamed down at his brother. "You're getting squished a lot today, aren't you MH?"

"Ergh…"

Master Hand slowly arose, finding his footing and dusting his glove off slightly, before gazing at the room around him. He was in what appeared to be a strange library, with row after row of tall gray shelves. He wandered up the aisle in the direction his brother had gone, finding the manic hand by a shelf of those terracotta balls he had shown him earlier.

"You see, MH? This is where I got the Tree-a pet from," Crazy Hand announced proudly.

"Are they actually called Tree-a pets?" Master Hand searched for a label, finding one that said "Tropical/subtropical—broadleaf" at one end of the shelf.

"Nope. I just like to call them that," Crazy Hand said, moving on to another shelf.

"Why?" Master Hand asked as he followed him; this shelf was labeled "Temperate—broadleaf/mixed" instead.

"Cuz they're so cute!" the left hand gushed. "Doesn't it sound like a good name? 'Tree-a pet'? Oh this is where I got the other one, by the way."

Master Hand sighed. "That explains the oak trees."

"Yeah we really need more variety don't we?" Crazy Hand mused. "You've seen the other worlds. Heck some of them have talking trees. That walk."

"Crazy, I don't think that was an actual tree…" Master Hand told him. "And anyways we need to get rid of the trees we have now first."

"But you said they were going to shrivel up anyway."

"Oh, that's right," Master Hand nodded. "We might as well make the atmosphere first."

"You see, kids," Crazy Hand said, raising his index finger. "If it weren't for this random forest, this chapter would be called 'Creating the Atmosphere.' Creative isn't it? Matches the style of the other titles, too. Yeah the author is pretty special. And also overworked, but that's another story."

"Uh, Crazy?" Master Hand peered around the left hand to see what he was looking at. "Who are you talking to?"

"The audience," Crazy Hand told him proudly. Master Hand gave him a bored look.

"So how do we get out of here?" he asked, quickly changing the subject. Crazy Hand sighed. If only his brother knew about the wonders of the fourth wall.

He gestured at the portal on the ceiling. "Same way we got in," he answered.

"Ok then, let's go." Master Hand floated up towards the portal and back out into the forest. He rose up above the trees and turned to his left counterpart, who followed closely behind him, carrying the World Creation book. The left hand flipped to page 9 and started to read.

"'Step 9: Create the atmosphere.' Says here we have to use the provided 'globular etheric reaction implementation and encasement machination,'" Crazy Hand said. He stared down at the page blankly before decisively handing the book over to his brother. "You can do this step."

"What? Fine…" Master Hand read over the step for himself; once again the adjacent page was blank. "Open says me!" he commanded. A blinding white light flashed out at him, so bright he had to look away or risk losing his eyesight—

"What eyesight?"

Quiet, Crazy. I'm trying to make it sound dramatic.

"But we don't have eyes—"

Then how can you see?

Crazy Hand lifted a finger and started to speak, but frankly he didn't know how to answer that question.

As the light began to fade, Master Hand reached into the cavity on the page and took out—

"A bubble blower?" he asked, confused. He twirled the large stick between his forefinger and his thumb, Crazy Hand gazing at it in awe.

"It's so big and shiny," Crazy ogled. Indeed it was; the bubble blower wand was made of a bright sterling silver, and had the number 101 etched sideways on the handle. "Gimme!" Crazy Hand snatched the stick from the right hand and grasped it tightly.

"I take it you _do_ want to do this step after all?" Master Hand asked with a hint of amusement. Crazy Hand nodded fervently. "Well ok then." He picked a glass vial up from inside the hollow; it was filled with a sparkling blue smoke—ether, according to a tiny label on the side. "This," he told Crazy, brandishing the bottle in from of him, "is what we use to make the atmosphere." Crazy Hand peered at the tiny vessel, then peered back at the large bubble blower in his hand. He snapped his fingers sassily.

"Nuh uh. This ain't never gonna fit in there."

Master Hand chuckled. "It doesn't need to. We can just pour it out." Crazy Hand took a thoughtful stance.

"I suppose we could do that," he muttered. "…_OR_ we could just take the bottle…"

"Crazy! No swiping!" Master Hand cried as his brother snatched the bottle out of his grasp. "It's fragile!" Crazy Hand heaved an exasperated sigh as he held the bottle afloat next to the bubble wand; he knew what he was doing.

"As I was saying," he continued. "We take the bottle, open it up…" He popped off its cork and tossed it aside, much to Master Hand's dismay. "And do this!" With a flourish he poured the murky blue contents of the bottle into the ring of the bubble blower. "Ta da!"

"Oh wonderful. Now come over here so I can clap," Master Hand said sarcastically. The left hand started towards him. "Hey, hold on! I was being sarcastic!" he quickly exclaimed.

_Yes, I know,_ Crazy Hand thought bitterly. He directed his attention to the bubble blower, the haze of blue ether swirling around in the ring of the wand. "I'll do this part now?" he asked after a moment, still staring into the wispy ether.

"Oh," Master Hand said. "Sure. Go ahead." He watched his left hand counterpart rise off the earth, bringing the silver bubble wand up with him, until he was too small to see anymore. _Crazy seemed different_, he thought. _Like he was angry…with _me_._ Maybe he was just being paranoid. _Crazy's just being his same unpredictable self. That's all._

_I'm Crazy Hand. Being random and chaotic is what I do._ Crazy Hand peered down at the earth from space, twirling the bubble wand between his fingers. _But I'm also the Hand of Destruction. One way or another, I have to destroy._ He tightened his grip on the bubble wand. "But…" He flipped the wand into the air and caught it again. "I'll just save that for later!" Crazy beamed. "Right now I have to think of something cool to say…" He looked up at the text above him for a moment. "EGAD! That's right! We've referred to this bubble blower as a wand at least seven—well I guess eight now—times now! I've got the perfect thing…things! Things to say!" Exuberant, Crazy Hand pointed the wand ("Nine!" Crazy Hand counted.) down at the earth, taking his mark.

"Swish and flick! Bippity boppity boo!"

Crazy Hand sent his energy surging through the stick of the bubble wand ("Ten!"), forming the ether in its ring into a spherical shape—a large bubble that grew larger by the second. He cackled maniacally as the bubble grew to gigantic proportions, and soon it surrounded the entire earth in layers of sky, giving it a glowing halo of blue.

From his place on the treetops below, Master Hand stared in awe at the mass of blue that had spread above him. "It's so…" He wanted to say it was so blue, but for some reason he felt that the word had become overused as of late. "It's so airy," he remarked. Just as well; things were shaping out just fine. They were finally getting back on track. "We'll have this world finished in no time," Master Hand mused optimistically. "…Even with all these trees here." With a smile he conjured up a megaphone and directed it up at the sky. "CRAZY!" he bellowed up to his brother. "COME ON DOWN HERE!"

"OK!" he heard Crazy Hand holler back. "THE SHUTTLE'S COMING HOME!"

_Ok, good,_ Master Hand thought._ We'll just take a short break and then—_ "Did he just say shuttle?"

Well, of course, Master Hand. How _else_ would you break through the earth's atmosphere?


	6. Contouring the Face of the Earth

**Chapter 5: Contouring the Face of the Earth – Day 3: Step 10**

"Dude, hey duude. Aw come on, MH. Don't be so melodramatic…" Crazy Hand shook the right hand, who attempted to swat him away.

"No…" he groaned. "Let me die…"

_Oh bother, _Crazy Hand sighed. "You're overreacting."

"You're underreacting," came the muffled reply.

Crazy Hand flicked Master Hand in the side. "Get uuuppppp!" he whined. "You haven't even seen it!"

_I don't need to see it to know how it looks,_ Master Hand thought regretfully. But he was going to have to see it sooner or later, so he might as well just get it over with.

Crazy Hand lit up with joy as he saw his brother begin to shift, slowly lifting himself up off the dirt. He busied himself with fanning the soot off the other's glove, flitting about him excitedly and chattering away about something or other to do with super-fast jellyfish. For his part, Master Hand could do nothing but stare blankly at the expanse of dirt around him—it was worse than he'd thought. The terrain around him, which had previously been covered in grass, was entirely exposed; he was standing in the middle of a large crater, the walls of which appeared to be miles away all around.

"Hey Master, you ok?"

Master Hand looked over at his brother, too flustered to actually respond. Crazy Hand frowned. "You didn't hear a thing I said did you? Jeeze just because I talk to myself a lot doesn't mean I always _want_ to!"

Master Hand sighed. "I'm sorry, Crazy. I'm just having a hard time wrapping my mind around all this…destruction." Crazy Hand gave him an odd look.

"You'd think you'd be used to it by now," he said doubtingly. "I mean hellooo. It's what I _dooo_."

Master Hand chuckled nervously. Crazy had a point.

"I always have a point," Crazy Hand beamed. "For instance, I made this huge crater so we'd get a head start on the next step, despite being nothing but disembodied hands."

Ignoring Crazy Hand's comment on their state as hands, Master Hand asked, rather unconvinced, "You're trying to do the next step again?" If the next step was blowing up the entire universe, then sure, Crazy Hand could keep doing what he was doing.

"Oh we're not going to blow up the _entire_ universe," Crazy Hand piped up, much to his right-handed counterpart's surprise. "But that was a good guess!"

_How does he _do_ that?_ Master Hand wondered for what felt like the umpteenth time. He knew Crazy Hand wasn't psychic—if he was he would've destroyed everyone's minds a _long_ time ago when they went around visiting some of the other worlds—but he knew no other explanation. _But what if he really _is _psychic?_ He peered over at his brother, and the left hand wiggled his fingers at him gleefully.

"You find step 10 yet?" Crazy Hand asked. Master Hand chuckled nervously before busying himself with flipping through the book. Crazy Hand was pleased to see he was starting to convince his brother that he was psychic. He wished it were true, but the real reason he knew Master Hand's thoughts was just so boring and average: all he was doing was reading the narration. Everyone could do _that_. He grumbled to himself bitterly until he heard Master Hand speak up in surprise.

"'Step 10: Terraform your earth,'" he began. "'Although the mainland planet you have created has several characteristics of earth, for your planet to truly qualify in the "earth" category it must first have the landscapes and environments typical of an earth.'" He gave Crazy Hand a bewildered look. "Do you mean to tell me earths have giant craters?"

"Well duh," Crazy Hand said. "We've been to plenty of earths. Remember that one place with the giant chasm? The really cold one? It's the same world that has talking trees! And what about that You're Gone place with that huge crater lake?" He gestured around at the crater they were in. "That's what this crater is for. Once we add water this crater can be a lake!"

"Wait what, Crazy slow down!" Master Hand exclaimed, overwhelmed by the amount of information Crazy Hand was sputtering out. "What step does water come in?"

"Step 12!" The Hand of Destruction let out an exasperated sigh. "Get your head in the game, MH! And don't give me any lip about not having a head either!" he added sternly before Master Hand could protest. "There are people out there who can gijinkify us at the drop of a pin! And by golly they will!" He turned his palm up to sky dramatically, his fingers shaking with emotion. "I can just imagine it. They'll make us into extremely boss train conductors wearing fancy white gloves that we use to point with a lot! And we'll have intense battles in subway cars after forcing our challengers through multiple stages of combat before finally gracing them with our presence! It shall be called Classic Mode and it shall have epic music and YOU, Mr. Hand of Creation, shall make it so!" He pointed triumphantly at Master Hand only to see that the right hand had metaphorically buried his nose in the World Creation book. He had pretty much stopped listening to the crazy hand's rambling after he mentioned gijink-whatever-it-was. He wasn't trying to seem rude, but he was fairly certain listening to a destructive hand blathering for extended periods of time was bad for your health.

"So I've finished familiarizing myself with the steps," Master Hand began, looking up from the book. "I want to make sure we don't have any more misunderstandings like this."

"Good, good, good," Crazy Hand said. He knew his brother never meant to be rude, but it still kind of stung to feel ignored. _Ah well! _he thought. _I can always bring it up again later!_

"It has a list of some of the features we can add in here," Master Hand was saying. "Besides lakes there are whole oceans we need to make." He rubbed his fingers together in thought. "I guess I'll leave all the placeholders for bodies of water to you."

"And the trenches and canyons and volcanos!"

"Don't we have to build up volcanos?" Master Hand asked.

"Well ok then if you want to make the volcanos—"

"No, no that's quite alright!" Master Hand interjected. "I'll leave all the destructive landforms to you as well!"

"Wunderbar!" Crazy Hand beamed. "What else do I get to destroy?" he asked merrily.

"The trees, for one."

There was a tense silence as the left hand stared at the right. Master Hand started to sweat nervously. He fidgeted, looking around a couple of times before peering back at his left counterpart, who for once was being completely still. It just felt wrong.

Master Hand attempted to break the silence. "Um, Crazy—"

"Bad!"

Master Hand was taken aback by this. "What do you mean—"

"Bad!" Crazy Hand repeated, wagging his finger. "Bad hand!"

"Ow!" Master Hand yelled as Crazy Hand flicked his pointer finger.

"Don't you know deforestation is bad?" Crazy Hand lectured. "Heck, even I know it's bad! _Me._"

"Hold it!" Master Hand said. "There are too many trees on this earth."

"It's beautreeful."

"Too much of _anything_ is a very bad thing," Master Hand continued, ignoring Crazy Hand's commentary. "Besides, you said you wanted more variety, and we can't do that unless we get rid of some of these trees first. A lot of these trees." Crazy Hand nodded thoughtfully; he had a point there.

Master Hand conjured up a large blank sheet of paper. "This is going to be our map," he told Crazy Hand. He took out a pen and made a small black dot in the center. "We are here. Right now, this entire earth is covered in grass. …With the exception of this crater, which will become a lake." He marked it on the map. "I'll be building land up and you'll be tearing it down. So I'll be making things like hills and mountains while you'll be making things like the oceans. Now, if I've understood correctly—"

"Now hold up!" Crazy Hand yelled out. "You want me to make _all_ the oceans? Are you crazy!? I mean, I'm Crazy, I know you're not because I am, unless we're really the same person, like clones or something, except not really clones because we have different movesets—" He shook himself roughly. "No! No rambling!"

"Crazy, I thought we'd agreed that you'd be forming the oceans," Master Hand said, somewhat amazed that Crazy Hand had managed to stop himself from going off on a tangent.

"By making trenches and messing up the sea floor so it isn't so weirdly flat, not making the whole gosh darned fishbowl! That would take _forever_," Crazy Hand whined. Besides, he thought, multiple tangents in one chapter would be overdoing it.

"Well I don't know what to say to you," Master Hand sighed. "World creation is serious business, Crazy."

**A/N: He's right! Worldbuilding is hard! [weeps]**

"Oh great!" Crazy Hand said. "Look what you've done, MH. You've given the author a reason to make an author's note in the middle of a story. I mean just look at it!" He gestured disbelievingly at the bolded words. "It's one of the worst things you could do with this writing medium! What were you thinking?"

"Me?" Master Hand asked, baffled. "You're asking me? I don't even know what you're talking about."

"No, not you," Crazy Hand said. "The author. Boy, it seems like everyone's going crazy today." He wilted, hovering lower to the ground. "That's my job," he muttered.

"Your job is also to make the oceans."

Crazy Hand's fingers twitched. He snatched the world creation book from his brother and rifled through the pages before coming upon another blank one. It was at this point he gave the book back to his brother, who looked between the barren paper surface and the left hand with a perplexed expression.

"You're the Hand of Creation, right?" Crazy Hand prompted, nudging Master Hand slightly. "You do this part first, and _then_ I'll get to destroying things!" He beamed brightly at his brother. "Go on," he said. "Just push the button."

"What button—?" And then Master Hand saw the large red button occupying the space where the blank page had been just a few seconds before. He stared at it blankly—likely with the blankness that once existed where the button was—and, for once not questioning the sequence of events, pressed the button.

To really understand the full effects of The Button, it is necessary to focus not on the individual trees, but on the entire forest—in this case, the entire world. Had the Hands completed step 10 by…hand, it would've required them to first uproot several thousand trees in order to make space to dig out the cavity of the ocean. However, what Master Hand failed to understand was how that would defeat the entire purpose of "World Creation 101: An Introduction to Basic World Creation (for Dummies)", the textbook for the introductory level course of (nearly) the same name in the discipline of world creation. No, to terraform the entire world completely by hand would require first taking the appropriate courses, of which there were several, followed by a research project spanning two full semesters of study. Thus, The Button was created for first-years to have a firsthand (and secondhand) experience of the mechanics of geological world creation. With its use of a state-of-the-art random number generator, The Button creates a new seed to be used as a template, forming a few basic structures and allowing students space to make more of their own, much like a child in a sandbox. Or, as it were, a sandbox video game.

What Crazy Hand failed to understand was how that would get rid of all his trees.

"NOOOOO!" Crazy Hand screamed out. He fell upon the ground and clawed at the dirt, sobbing heavily. "My trees! My beautiful trees!"

"Huh," Master Hand mused as he looked over the map, which The Button had so graciously filled out for him to show the newly-seeded earth. "That was easy."

"Too easy!" Crazy Hand balled himself into a fist and shook it at the sky. "Daaaamn you, deus ex machina! Daaaaamn you!" If he had teeth, he would've been grinding them together furiously, much to his dentist's dismay, but he had neither teeth nor a dentist, and so he fumed to himself, quietly cursing someone he called "the author" for what he considered lazy writing. _I was going to remove all the trees myself,_ he thought sorrowfully. _I had a katamari ready and everything… I was going to sing the song too!_

Master Hand floated over to his weeping brother and patted him on the back. "There, there, Crazy. It's alright. We can add trees again during the next step."

"It just won't be the same," Crazy Hand muttered. Master Hand sighed.

"No, you're right," he said. "It will be much better." Crazy Hand gazed up at him, wiping away his tears from wherever it was they were, and leapt up and gave him a tight hug.

"Aw you promise?" he bubbled. "Aw, MH! I love you too!"

The Hand of Creation made a choking sound as his destructive twin continued to squeeze him. "Crazy," he gasped, "Can't…breathe…"

"Aw ya silly, it's not like I'm restricting your windpipe or anything! You are a hand after all!"

"Crazy…please…"

"Oh alright."

As soon as Crazy Hand let go of him, Master Hand dropped to the ground and took deep gulps of air. _Air,_ he gasped._ Beautiful, savory air!_ Crazy Hand shook himself in disbelief. Air had never been so important to them when they lived up in space.

Once Master Hand finally regained his composure, he went about examining the map, explaining to Crazy Hand that even though most of the work had been done for them already, they still needed to build and break some things to really make the world their own.

"You know, add some pizzazz to it," Master Hand said. "Make it…lively, interesting."

"So I never have to tell you I'm bored again, you mean?"

"Something like that, yes."

Master Hand took out a pen and started marking up the map, motioning to Crazy Hand places that would look better with some destroying. Crazy Hand took out a pen of his own—a Sharpie, for emphasis—and started pointing out places he thought would do better with more standing landforms. The brothers shared a look of camaraderie as they sorted out their plan. Crazy Hand would raze away the grass to make deserts and savannas, smush the land together to get mountains, and for artistic effect, ravage a couple of places in a chaotic manner to mess them up just right. And Master Hand would be peacefully sculpting hills and valleys and little mesas as far away from him as possible.

"Do you get it?" he asked Crazy Hand.

"Yesh!" Crazy Hand gave him a salute before zipping away to start his reign of destruction on the other side of the earth.

Master Hand let out a heavy sigh. Now he was alone. Now there was peace. He floated up into the sky and surveyed the area below him, using the lake as his point of reference. _A hill would look nice over there…and a forest around the lake,_ he thought. _And the mansion can go right over there by the hill… Maybe a large city on the other side? Hmm, and the ocean is just a ways off in that direction, too._ A loud cackling erupted from the north, but Master Hand was too enveloped in his daydreams to notice. "A large mansion…" The idea was really starting to grow on him. "It could have seven floors and enough rooms to fit an army… Wait, no." Would seven floors even be enough for that? _Maybe a couple of basements. That sounds about right. Oh and I'd love to have a garden! Mother had beautiful flowers in her garden._ He smiled to himself, contented by the idea. Things were finally working out.

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><p><strong>AN: This chapter was brought to you by a sudden burst of inspiration! My plan is to work on this and another story at the same time, and it's starting to seem feasible, but we'll see. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Seeing as you're now at the bottom of the page, that is.**


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